PETA's "Scent of Death" App Brings Smell of Slaughter to DTLA Ralph's

Downtown hipsters beware. If you're heading to Ralphs today for your weekly fix of PBR and pickles, you might get hit with the "scent of death" on your way out.

A 15-year-old named Joseph Arambula will demonstrating a new PETA app that the animal rights organization says will enable users to recreate the scent of decaying flesh found on corporate farms and slaughterhouses.

It's being revealed ahead of Memorial Day weekend and barbecue season. The app includes ...

... a dongle that can be plugged into an iPhone or iPad, PETA's Liam Cronin told us. It contains a cartridge worth 100 sprays, he said, explaining this is how it works:

A shopper can scan the barcodes of hundreds of refrigerated and frozen chicken products at their local market and the app, if it recognizes the code, will squeeze off a nice spritz of dead-animal smell.

The program is in beta mode and PETA's folks are still testing it, Cronin said. So today's event is just a demo to raise awareness about meat.

PETA says the goal is ...

... to change the minds of shoppers about eating flesh. The action is to mark Memorial Day (May 26), when many people host or attend barbecues.

PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman:

It's time for Americans to rethink honoring their country's fallen service members by eating the corpses of animals who didn't want to die. All anyone has to do is go vegan, and the 'scent of death' will never haunt them again.

We are still haunted, however, by the scent of fried chicken and roast pork, so PETA will have a battle on its hands for the hearts and minds of meat lovers, app or no app.

The action happens, by the way, at 4 p.m. outside the Ralphs at 645 W. Ninth St., downtown.

Dennis Romero has worked on staff at several magazines and newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian, and, as a
young stringer, the New York Times.